R100 HOME AGAIN

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 42, 18 August 1930, Page 9

RIOO HOME AGAIN

SUCCESSFUL VOYAGE

AIR MINISTER'S TRIBUTE^ British Official Wireless. (Received 18th August, 11 a.m.) RUGBY, 17th August. The'airship 8100 was sighted from; Cardington aerodrome at 9.40 yesterday morning, Greenwich mean, time, and dropped her mooring cable at half past ten. Having left Montreal at half past one Greenwich mean time on '.Thursday morning, she has accomplished the 3000-mile homeward journey in p7 hours. Tho airship sighted •the south-west coast of Ireland at'quarter to three, Greenwich mean time, and proceeded due east to Lundy -Island. She passed up tho Bristol Channel, bejng oft" Newport at half past eight, jmd thonco shaped her course to Cardington.

Lord Thomson, Air Minister, Sir Sef•ton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation, and other representatives of the Air Ministry were at the Cardington Aerodrome awaiting the airship. The conditions of wind and light interfered to some extent with mooring operations, but the airship was safely moored at 11 o'clock. As soon as the airship was safely moored, the Customs officials went aboard to "dear" ship. When this formality had been completed, the passengers came off and wore , greeted at the top of the tower hy, Lord Thomson and Air Commodore Holt, representing Air-Marshal Sir John Biggins. •■ . ' . ' . ■ Lord Thomson congratulated WingCommander Colmore on having accomplished this first stage in the development of British airships, and added: "I wish to convey through you my heartiest congratulations to SquadronLeader Booth for his excellent handling of the airship, and to all officers and crew for the magnificent work they have done in circumstances which have provided a searching test not only of their efficiency, but also of the sound construction of EIOO. I wish also to express my high appreciation of the work of all who have been responsible for the design and construction of 8100, and to pay a special tribute to the officers and staff in charge of 'the ground organisation, which has worked perfectly throughout the flight." STABLE AND SMOOTH. The accomplishment of the airship UIOO in flying from Canada to Cardington, a distance of 3000 miles, in 57 hours, which shows an average speed of 58 miles per hour, has given great satisfaction at the Air Ministry. Average speed was approximately thrice .that of the speediest ocean liners, and ■was attained despite adverse weather conditions and a crippled engine. .Wing-Commander Colmore reports: *We ran into a rather bad patch on Thursday night. It took several hours Ifco get out of that bad patch, but apart jjrom that we had a very smooth passage." A remarkable feature about the outftvard and homeward voyages, ho said, ixad been the stability of tho ship in JBight. Apart from the short time they were bumped about rather badly, the fehip did not pitch or roll, and there was }no vibration whatever. He thought all the passengers during the home flight tail been very much impressed with ■Hi at fact. . . The log shows that the airship stai-t----'sd on her voyage with 9585 gallons of fuel and at the finish she had 3200 gallons. Thus for a voyage of 57 hours she used two-thirds of her fuel. The apparent inference is that with all her fuel her maximum duration would have been.about 87 hours. This, however, is not a correct interpretation of the figures, for she cpuld have carried E far greater quantity of fuel and somewhat less water ballast. Fuel can be used as ballast in emergency, although in this particular case tho amount of water ballast carried on the 8100 afforded a big safety margin. The voyage was much assisted by frequent wireless communication with Shipping en route. This marks a great Advance in recent years. When the R34 grossed the Atlantic comparatively few fehips had wireless.